The maternal mortality ratio is unacceptably high in Africa. Forty per cent of all pregnancy-related deaths worldwide occur in Africa. On average, over 7 women die per 1,000 live births. About 22,000 African women die each year from unsafe abortion, reflecting a high unmet need for contraception. Contraceptive use among women in union varies from 50 per cent in the southern sub-region to less than 10 per cent in middle and western Africa" UNFPA
Early and unwanted childbearing, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and pregnancy-related illnesses and deaths account for a significant proportion of the burden of illness experienced by women in Africa. Gender-based violence is an influential factor negatively impacting on the sexual and reproductive health of one in every three women. Many are unable to control decisions to have sex or to negotiate safer sexual practices, placing them at great risk of disease and health complications.
According to UNAIDS, there is an estimated of 22.2 million people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan African in 2009, which represents 68% of the global HIV burden. Women are at higher risk than men to be infected by HIV, their vulnerability remains particulary high in the Sub-Saharan Africa and 76% of all HIV women in the world live in this region.
In almost all countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, the majority of people living with HIV are women, especially girls and women aged between 15-24. Not only are women more likely to become infected, they are more severely affected. Their income is likely to fall if an adult man loses his job and dies. Since formal support to women are very limited, they may have to give up some income-genrating activities or sacrifice school to take care of the sick relatives.
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Source: News24
It was just 07:00 and Hoda was walking alone to a clinic in the Moroccan coastal city of Agadir. She skipped breakfast: the Senegalese doctor had told her that the abortion would be better done on an empty stomach.
Source: Zambia Daily Mail
Zambia has launched the 2014-2018 strategic plan aimed at expanding HIV and community sexual reproductive health rights (SRHR) in women, girls and adolescents.
Source: The New Times
Maternity leave benefit scheme is expected to be gazetted on July 1, paving way for working women going on a 12-week maternity leave to be paid their full salary throughout their leave.
Source: The Observer
At least 200 women in Kabale district tested positive for cervical cancer, in a recent testing drive by Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU).
Source: Mail&Guardian.co.za
Women's advocacy groups are lodging a formal complaint against the "coerced" sterilisation of HIV-infected women, saying it defies state policy.
Source: Malawi24
A female parliamentarian for Mangochi South Constituency, Lillian Patel believes the recently passed Malawi's Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Bill, empowers women in the country as it helps women cling to their maiden names.
Source: Malawi News Agency
Minister of Health Dr Jean Kalilani has encouraged women in Nkhotakota to utilise the Chipatala Cha Pa Foni (CCPF) concept.
Source: UNFPA
For 20 years, the international community has agreed that reproductive rights are critical to global development. Yet these rights remain tragically unfulfilled for millions of women and girls. This was the central message at a panel discussion held yesterday at United Nations Headquarters in New York, during the annual Commission on the Status of Women.
Source: Reuters
Maternal and child death rates fell in every one of the poorest 49 countries in the world between 2010 and 2013, largely as a result of a U.N. initiative launched in 2010, the world body said on Tuesday.
Source: Deutsche Welle
Lobola is the name given to bride price in the Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swazi cultures which span the southern tip of Africa. It is a custom in which the family of the bridegroom man pays the family of the bride for her hand in marriage and has been in existence for centuries.
Source: Business Day Live
Hopes that a South African-developed vaginal gel containing the HIV/AIDS drug tenofovir would protect women against HIV were dashed on Tuesday, after a major new study found that it did not work.